“Spring – an experience in immortality.” – Henry David Thoreau
Spring is still a way off with March 20th marking the vernal equinox, the day when the sun will shine directly on the equator and the length of day and night will be nearly equal. If you buy into the groundhog predictions, we still have 6 more weeks of winter in these parts. My Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts that mid-March will be among the snowiest periods of the winter in the Ohio Valley. Gosh, it even says that there might be snow the first week of April. Whatever happened to April showers? Don’t put your snow shovels away too soon.
If you are at all like me, I am getting a little anxious to forget the winter, which has seemed a bit more cold and dreary this season. Does it sometimes feel like nature is asleep or maybe it has abandoned us entirely? The trees are barren and when the snow is gone, browns and grays dominate the landscape. There doesn’t appear to be a whole lot moving out there when we glance out the window. But is it really asleep, did it turn in in November only to finally awaken in a few distant weeks when the sun once again warms the soil and daylight lasts a little longer? Be assured we have not been abandoned to a new ice age, at least not yet. As they say, the signs of life are among us.
The birds that visit my feeders remind me that life goes on. For certain, many of our summer friends went south, just as some of us may have. But like most, a number of us birds included, have remained. The familiar cardinal, the junco, a variety of woodpeckers, the blue jay, the house finch, and many others have still called my backyard home this winter. The male and female cardinals against the white snow have made for a beautiful contrast in colors.
Maybe we have caught a glimpse of some of our four-legged residents, too. The ever present fox squirrels have raided my feeders all winter. A hike in the Brown County woods revealed a whitetail deer, which I startled from its hiding place. The tracks of a raccoon were evident along the creek bank and a flock of turkeys had moved through the woods leaving their tracks in the snow. The morning hoot of a barred owl, who, who, who cooks for you reminds me that mice and chipmunks, busy on the woodland floor, will make a fine winter meal for this beautiful owl. The coyotes have also claimed the woods for their own during these winter months after we gave them up for the warmth of the hearth. The tracks of all these denizens of winter provide the best evidence that the woods are still alive with activity, even on the coldest of days.
But have heart, for below your feet and above your head, spring awaits, as it has for eons. The trees will soon bud, the spring wildflowers will emerge, the days and nights will be warmer, and the birds of summer will return. The bright sun will warm your soul and the fragrance of spring will help you shed the thoughts of the winter past. I, too, long for spring but this winter hasn’t been so bad when I think of all the life out there, even on the bleakest of days.
“They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man’s discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.”
– Henry David Thoreau
